Goblin Squad Member
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Except any character can take any skill and train them as much as they want without penalty or the need to ever weigh them against other concerns in terms of slotting.
What real purpose do you have to take a rogue with stealth, perception, climb, disable device, and diplomacy over a fighter who trained the exact same skills?
You make the key Rogue abilities Expendables, and tie them to the Rogue implement. Pick Lock, Disable Device, etc. become Maneuvers, instead of Feats.
Really, all four Roles are subject to the "everyone can train everything" factor. It's a primarily class-less game. You're not a Rogue. You're an adventurer who happened to train more Rogue feats than Fighter or Wizard feats. Same goes for the other three roles.
Assuming we have roles at all (which I have always been totally opposed to) there is something to be said for rogue roles when slotted giving better bonuses then currently to stealth perception and so forth so that with equal training in perception the character slotting a rogue role is noticeably better. Adding some of these bonuses as a static bonus to the rogue kit implement when slotted may also be an interesting thought.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Except any character can take any skill and train them as much as they want without penalty or the need to ever weigh them against other concerns in terms of slotting.
What real purpose do you have to take a rogue with stealth, perception, climb, disable device, and diplomacy over a fighter who trained the exact same skills?
You make the key Rogue abilities Expendables, and tie them to the Rogue implement. Pick Lock, Disable Device, etc. become Maneuvers, instead of Feats.
Really, all four Roles are subject to the "everyone can train everything" factor. It's a primarily class-less game. You're not a Rogue. You're an adventurer who happened to train more Rogue feats than Fighter or Wizard feats. Same goes for the other three roles.
I've suggested solutions before but the response from GW basically boiled down to "There is no problem."
I'm less concerned about how you feel it could be balanced and more concerned about getting the concept through that there is a need for a balance.
The difference between wizards, clerics, and fighters who's power is based on slot-table skills and rogues whom you can say this about:
We have no dungeons yet, so no traps. No treasure chests, so no locked, trapped chests. No walls to climb, not much need for skills except crafting, no need for a party "face" to negotiate with NPCs. Right now, the only possible differentiators between rogues and fighters are combat-related. They'll be more lightly armored than fighters, and they might be more attuned to the flow of conditions on themselves and enemies, because of Sneak Attack and a bunch of good secondary attacks. That's about it.
None of this means that GW has no idea how to balance classes. It means that rogues will have to wait for their time to shine until we can fight indoors, have traps to avoid, and need to open locked doors with more finesse than a battleaxe to the hinges.
Is in order to take advantage of a fighters power you have to slot their abilities. In order to take advantage of skills you simply have to train them.
Tying it to expendables or making a system where you can only have bonuses from so many passives skills such as BAB, HP, Power, Stealth, Perception etc. active at once could both work.
But first GW needs to get it through their heads that skills any class can train and gain constant benefit forever after, are not a meaningful balance for a role which has crappy slottables.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Assuming we have roles at all (which I have always been totally opposed to) there is something to be said for rogue roles when slotted giving better bonuses then currently to stealth perception and so forth so that with equal training in perception the character slotting a rogue role is noticeably better. Adding some of these bonuses as a static bonus to the rogue kit implement when slotted may also be an interesting thought.Except any character can take any skill and train them as much as they want without penalty or the need to ever weigh them against other concerns in terms of slotting.
What real purpose do you have to take a rogue with stealth, perception, climb, disable device, and diplomacy over a fighter who trained the exact same skills?
You make the key Rogue abilities Expendables, and tie them to the Rogue implement. Pick Lock, Disable Device, etc. become Maneuvers, instead of Feats.
Really, all four Roles are subject to the "everyone can train everything" factor. It's a primarily class-less game. You're not a Rogue. You're an adventurer who happened to train more Rogue feats than Fighter or Wizard feats. Same goes for the other three roles.
So you don't think the bonuses from the Rogue armor feats are big enough? As far as I know, the armor feats are where static bonuses like that live.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Thoughts on Rogue:
Rogue in the MVP is an ambush predator. Rogue will have the Armor Feats to get benefits from Medium Armor, thus will have a mix of carrying capacity (for loot) and defense against physical attacks.
Rogue should have substantially higher Stealth than any other characters. High Stealth should enable Rogue to minimize detection when selecting targets and establishing ambushes. Working with other characters to drive potential targets into ambush zone should amplify Rogue's effectiveness.
Sneak Attack effect means Rogue punches above its weight when forcing the target into the Flat-Footed condition.
Sorrow's Release / Multi-Shot (Shortbow) is a great combo for ambushing. Especially if two Rogues work together.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So you don't think the bonuses from the Rogue armor feats are big enough?
No. The scout role while being nice for it's stealth bonus, is simply not worth the tradeoff of being made of glass when you can can play medium armor archers and evangelists that also have speed and range bonuses.
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Goblin Squad Member
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why would any settlement not already locked into rogue training facilities ever take them???
I realize it's still a long way away, so settlements might be able to hold off on having Rogue training and pick it up later (it might be too late to pick them up at some point, though). I also realize PvP flags mechanics have changed, etc. However, I hope even some of what was outlined in this old blog post comes to fruition:
https://goblinworks.com/blog/join-forces-underground/
When the assassination mechanics finally make it into this game, Rogues will be an integral part of settlement vs. settlement (or kingdom vs. kingdom) warfare. There will be tons of opportunity for assassination contracts and bounties, I'm sure. I know this may be taking the optimistic longview, but I sincerely feel that this will be the case.
Yes, Rogues may be limited for the near future, but as more systems and game mechanics come online, they will undoubtedly have their time to shine. Given that a role will take upwards of 2.5 years to train to the higher end of its capabilities, I think we will see some of these gameplay mechanics enter the game by the time people can start to fully interact with them.
Don't give up on Rogues just yet!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thoughts on Rogue:
Rogue in the MVP is an ambush predator. Rogue will have the Armor Feats to get benefits from Medium Armor, thus will have a mix of carrying capacity (for loot) and defense against physical attacks.
Rogue should have substantially higher Stealth than any other characters. High Stealth should enable Rogue to minimize detection when selecting targets and establishing ambushes. Working with other characters to drive potential targets into ambush zone should amplify Rogue's effectiveness.
Sneak Attack effect means Rogue punches above its weight when forcing the target into the Flat-Footed condition.
Sorrow's Release / Multi-Shot (Shortbow) is a great combo for ambushing. Especially if two Rogues work together.
I agree that other characters will be very useful for setting up ambushes, because from what I've seen, right now there aren't very many terrain barriers that channel people through particular areas. Mountain hexes have their entry ramps, and some impassible peaks, and particularly steep river banks help, but not much else. I suppose the walls around tower courtyards might work, too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't believe it's ever been stated you have to be a rogue to be an assassin. It may be much simpler to train another class in stealth or disguise and use it as an assassin.
That's a fair point. I suppose time will tell what the requirements are for learning assassin-related feats.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2. Role Balancing: I can honestly not think of anything a Rogue can do that Fighters, In particular, can not do better.If your settlement goes wizard/rogue, a rogue can more fully and conveniently train than a fighter since the included skirmisher trainer doesn't train your basic fighter skills........................................................................
Are you seriously using the argument that a class is easier to train if you don't have the other kind of class trainer as a justification that it's balanced?
Wow.... just wow....
Let's rephrase the question to: Other than the mistaken assumption Goblinworks have any clue of how to balance a class why would any settlement not already locked into rogue training facilities ever take them???
No, as usual, you completely missed the meaning in favor of dissing somebody you dislike.
I was grumbling because the skirmisher trainer doesn't train basic fighter feats. Since my settlement went the wizard/rogue route my options are more limited than I would prefer.
Truly, were you to suddenly surprise everyone by refraining from bashing everything that isn't you your question is just the last half of your rhetorical 'question': Why would any settlement ever offer rogue training rather than something else? The obvious answer is because they wish to focus on wizardry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be helpful to note that, if a recipe you already knew has had the level raised above your current level, you haven't actually forgotten it or lost it, you just can't use it.
I found this out the hard way, running 10 hexes and dying once for a trade only to find, on clicking on the recipe, that a) I already knew it and B) it was now 4 levels higher.
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Goblin Squad Member
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<Harping mode ON>
Rouges are now some kind of Harvester/Gatherer with teeth, not very Rogueish, no.
<Harp mode OFF>
The night before last someone was asking about sneaking and sneak attack, and why you couldn't sneak right up to a mob and attack. Tester Prime said that sneaking wasn't meant to work that way and was really more useful for harvesting (!!!!) When I asked why Rogues were forced to take it, it all went quiet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The night before last someone was asking about sneaking and sneak attack, and why you couldn't sneak right up to a mob and attack. Tester Prime said that sneaking wasn't meant to work that way and was really more useful for harvesting (!!!!) When I asked why Rogues were forced to take it, it all went quiet.<Harping mode ON>
Rouges are now some kind of Harvester/Gatherer with teeth, not very Rogueish, no.
<Harp mode OFF>
LOL!!!
*Andius stealthily sneaks up and then repeatedly smashes his pickaxe into the rock... stealthily... and then stealthily hauls his load of ore away*
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Goblin Squad Member
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They came out of the darkness, wrapped in the shadows as others wear coats. As the guardsman's vigilance faded into a yawn and he, but for a short moment, turned his back - that was when the rogues struck! (the metal node)
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Goblin Squad Member
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*Andius stealthily sneaks up and then repeatedly smashes his pickaxe into the rock... stealthily... and then stealthily hauls his load of ore away*
If you're sneaking up with a pickaxe and digging in, you're vastly ahead of those of us who haven't managed to manufacture any harvesting kits yet, let alone find any nodes that require more than picking up the loose pieces we find. Perhaps what you experienced was a dream of the future when we will actually be using equipment to process "gushers" which will attract the attention of the surrounding wildlife?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can suspend belief long enough to assume all characters constantly have the tools needed for their gathering profession. I really wouldn't like to see people grabbing handfuls of glowing gas and gathering ore from big old rocks with their bare hands once we reach of the stage of the game that they can afford to refine that kind of stuff. I feel like a lot of people trying the game are going to find that rather cheesy once we reach OE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thoughts on Rogue:
Rogue in the MVP is an ambush predator. Rogue will have the Armor Feats to get benefits from Medium Armor, thus will have a mix of carrying capacity (for loot) and defense against physical attacks.
Rogue should have substantially higher Stealth than any other characters. High Stealth should enable Rogue to minimize detection when selecting targets and establishing ambushes. Working with other characters to drive potential targets into ambush zone should amplify Rogue's effectiveness.
Sneak Attack effect means Rogue punches above its weight when forcing the target into the Flat-Footed condition.
Sorrow's Release / Multi-Shot (Shortbow) is a great combo for ambushing. Especially if two Rogues work together.
Weren't most of the "Rogue" feats with short bow shifted from generating opportunity --> flat foot, to generating distress ---> ?? (still flat foot?)
I haven't been in the game for a few days, to test it out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Weren't most of the "Rogue" feats with short bow shifted from generating opportunity --> flat foot, to generating distress ---> ?? (still flat foot?)
From the Alpha Boards, responding to Kitsune's asking for updates on Flat-Footed:
Multi-Shot, Distracting Shot, and the exploit for shortbow all still capitalize on Flat-Footed. The restoration of Distressed and Unbalanced was probably at least as hard on other roles as it was on rogues (e.g., Downburst was way easier than intended to get the knockdown when it was Opportunity instead of Unbalanced).
As far as I know, the only thing missing from Flat-Footed at the start of combat is a system hook for me to negate it with the Uncanny Dodge feat. Encumbrance is coming in soon, restoring some amount of mobility advantage to light armor. We may have fixed Stealth distances; it wasn't my bug, so I'd need to check tomorrow to see if it got resolved yet. We've got better icons on the UI now, which should help a little with clarity, but the UI could still be better.
The big two of Sneak Attack always counting as Flat-Footed and enchanting are still not yet implemented.
We (the designers and Ryan) had a big conversation about how to improve rogues today apart from the features I listed in September, with some ideas from the forums as a starting point, and hopefully we're correct in our designerly assumption that they're a pretty simple-to-program core that we can add quickly and then iterate on to improve.
TL;DR: Rogue has had a couple of fixes. Not nearly enough. Still don't plan to say Rogues are ready until we get nerf requests.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's good to hear that rogues are getting some love!
1 thing that I would like to see, and it probably would not just help rogues, is some indication of bleed damage. It could be as simple as the bleed damage appearing in purple... It doesn't add any power to the rogue, but it does add the ability to see what damage I am doing and where it is coming from. At the moment, with the damage ticking up as I hit, I never see any damage that doesn't appear to have come from an actual hit so there is no evidence that bleeds are working at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can suspend belief long enough to assume all characters constantly have the tools needed for their gathering profession. I really wouldn't like to see people grabbing handfuls of glowing gas and gathering ore from big old rocks with their bare hands once we reach of the stage of the game that they can afford to refine that kind of stuff. I feel like a lot of people trying the game are going to find that rather cheesy once we reach OE.
Maybe, but I don't presume to speak for anyone else on the level of cheese they'll accept. I think if one accepts that a refiners and crafters will use essences in making magic items, there's no reason to be less accepting of gatherers drawing their fingers through the ether to extract coils of those same essences and bagging them. People were picking, ore and gems from the gravel to decorate themselves long before they had picks or shovels.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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My guess was that the bleed indicatior was a red strip in the target's health bar. With multiple bleed attacks/stacks, the strip gets wider.
This.
The darker red stripe shows how much HP they're about to lose on the next bleed tick (once per round). I believe it's orange for Burning and brown for Afflicted in the same way. There may be some inaccuracy in the display since we went to a % of max HP base for DoTs rather than a flat HP number (that is, I'm not positive on the tick that the red stripe totally disappears and then moves down for the next round of bleed, but it should be close).
Keep in mind that stacking debuffs only go up to 100. If you hit them with enough bleeds that the chevrons don't appear to be getting any higher and the strip doesn't appear to be getting any wider, you're probably capped out. Switch to another attack/stacking effect and then just refresh the bleed back up to 100 after it ticks off.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My guess was that the bleed indicatior was a red strip in the target's health bar. With multiple bleed attacks/stacks, the strip gets wider.This.
The darker red stripe shows how much HP they're about to lose on the next bleed tick (once per round). I believe it's orange for Burning and brown for Afflicted in the same way. There may be some inaccuracy in the display since we went to a % of max HP base for DoTs rather than a flat HP number (that is, I'm not positive on the tick that the red stripe totally disappears and then moves down for the next round of bleed, but it should be close).
Keep in mind that stacking debuffs only go up to 100. If you hit them with enough bleeds that the chevrons don't appear to be getting any higher and the strip doesn't appear to be getting any wider, you're probably capped out. Switch to another attack/stacking effect and then just refresh the bleed back up to 100 after it ticks off.
But, but they keep hitting me while I try to figure this out! ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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If your looking to solo as a rogue, I recommend the swashbuckler/daredevil line and dual wielding with a longsword/shortsword. The longsword has a primary with 50% flatfoot condition that sets up the ShSw backstab damage.
Good point, but because all kills look at the primary weapon in hand, all of your kills will count toward Martial achievements instead of Subterfuge.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The night before last someone was asking about sneaking and sneak attack, and why you couldn't sneak right up to a mob and attack. Tester Prime said that sneaking wasn't meant to work that way and was really more useful for harvesting (!!!!) When I asked why Rogues were forced to take it, it all went quiet.<Harping mode ON>
Rouges are now some kind of Harvester/Gatherer with teeth, not very Rogueish, no.
<Harp mode OFF>
LOL!!!
*Andius stealthily sneaks up and then repeatedly smashes his pickaxe into the rock... stealthily... and then stealthily hauls his load of ore away*
Just a miner invader...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Question: Are the Expert and Commoner trainers available to all player settlement templates, or only to crafting settlement templates?
(Or put another way, do they only show up in the "white tents" when next to an Auction House?)
I'm fairly certain they only appear in Crafting Settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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With Alpha 11:
1- What is the level/rank/skill cap for Starter Towns & Thornkeep?
2- Where is the reference to how many towers a player settlement needs in order to get higher levels of training (Tier 2 and 3)?
3- Is the "captured towers affect your settlement training" mechanism currently working?
4- When referring to skills, is Tier 1 (1-7), Tier 2 (8-14) and Tier 3 (15-20), or am I horribly misunderstanding things? :)
5- Does PFO Wiki have a list of trainers by building types (if so, I cant find it)?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks, Nihimon.
Edit: I do need Archer 6 to fully utilize soldier's chainmail +3, right?
As far as I know the only items in current Alpha 11 where you can train high enough to make full use of the +3 version is implements - spellbooks, holy symbols, rogue kits etc.
There is no point other than epeen to +3 weapons or +3 armor until the towers actually work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks, Nihimon.
Edit: I do need Archer 6 to fully utilize soldier's chainmail +3, right?
I think that's not right. If I understand the spreadsheets (in the passives tab), then,
Archer 6 and 7 get you the following keywords:
Masterwork (Tier 2)
Medium (+0)
Military (+1)
Flexible (+2)
At Archer 8 and 9 you'll add:
Supple (+3)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks, Nihimon.
Edit: I do need Archer 6 to fully utilize soldier's chainmail +3, right?
I think that's not right. If I understand the spreadsheets (in the passives tab), then,
Archer 6 and 7 get you the following keywords:
Masterwork (Tier 2)
Medium (+0)
Military (+1)
Flexible (+2)At Archer 8 and 9 you'll add:
Supple (+3)
Yep
You need an armor feat at 8 to use +3 armor (T1 or T2)
You need a weapon feat at 5 to use a +3 weapon (T1 or T2)